Sozan, a Chinese Zen master, was asked by a student: "What is the most valuable thing in the world?"
The master replied: "The head of a dead cat."
"Why is the head of a dead cat the most valuable thing in the world?" inquired the student.
Sozan replied: "Because no one can name its price."
Okay, so someone thought it would be a good idea to make a board game based on the Holocaust. Several someones, in fact. The result? Players can now spend an evening deciding who gets put on a train to Auschwitz.
While Destructoid's review of the game Train makes it out to be a deep and respectful treatment of its subject matter, I can't help but wonder if this is in effect game designers discovering a reverse 'Godwin's Law.' Just as Modern Warfare 2's 'No Russian' storyline was criticized for using terrorism for shock value, I imagine people would find no lack of things to criticize about the commercialization of the Holocaust.
In a sense this is an intellectual property debate. However, the owners of this property are the victims of the Holocaust, not some corporate conglomerate for which people tend to have little sympathy. Even as anime and manga are not owned by the people who scan and torrent them, the Holocaust is not owned by the people making a buck off these games. The usual arguments that would apply to trademark are relevant as well: while there is no dilution of trademark or signature style in people providing Bleach scans (though there is dilution in people ripping off art a la Incarnate) it may well be argued that to evoke the Holocaust for a lesser purpose is to dilute its impact.
And yet the responses from critics have been positive. Train, it seems, manages to be transformative work. Art is not necessarily exploitative, and certainly to make art about something is, to our minds, a very different thing than to simply make a buck off of it. If games can be art, then perhaps games about the Holocaust can form noble and important statements.
PETER: Just tell me, please, what you mean by all this bombast about bulls, bolts of thunder, and maledictions. I never heard from Christ a single one of these words.
JULIUS: You'll feel their full force, if you don't watch out.
PETER: Perhaps you used to terrify people with that bluster, but it counts for nothing here. Here we deal only in the truth. This is a fortress to be captured with good deeds, not ugly words. But let me ask you, since you threaten men with the thunder of excommunication; what's your legal authority for that?
JULIUS: Very well: I take it you are now out of office and have no more standing than any other unbeneficed priest; indeed, you're not even a complete priest, since you lack the power to consecrate.
PETER: Doubtless because I happen to be dead.
JULIUS: Obviously.
PETER: But for the same reason, you have no more standing with me than any other dead man.
JULIUS: But as long as the cardinals are arguing over the election of a new pope, it counts as my administration.
GENIUS: He's still dreaming dreams about being alive!
JULIUS: But now, open the door, I tell you.
PETER: And I won't do a thing, I tell you, unless you give me a full account of your merits.
JULIUS: What merits?
PETER: Let me explain the idea. Did you distinguish yourself in theology?
JULIUS: Not at all. I had no time for it, being continually engaged in warfare.
Besides, there are plenty of priests to do that sort of work.
PETER: Then by the holiness of your life you gained many souls for Christ?
GENIUS: Many more for hell, I'd say.
PETER: You performed miracles?
JULIUS: You're talking old-fashioned nonsense.
PETER: You prayed earnestly and constantly?
JULIUS: This is pure foolishness.
PETER: You subdued the lusts of the flesh with fasts and long vigils?
GENIUS: Enough of this, please; with this line of questioning, you're just wasting your time.
PETER: This one thing I know, that Christ's vicar on earth should be as much like him as possible, and lead his life in such a way that nobody can blame any part of it, or justifiably speak evil of him. Things go badly with popes when, instead of earning men's commendations by good deeds, they extort praises with threats.
Such popes cannot be praised without lying; indeed, they can't expect anything more than the sullen silence of those who hate them. Tell me now truly, is there no way at all to correct a criminal, infectious pope?
JULIUS: Absurd. Who is going to remove the highest authority of all?
PETER: That's exactly why he should be removed, because he's the highest figure; for the higher he is, the more pernicious his influence may be. If secular laws allow for a king who rules his land badly to be not only deposed but executed, why should the church be so helpless that it must put up with a pope who ruins everything, instead of expelling him as a public nuisance?
- Desiderius Erasmus, trans. Robert M. Adams
Beauty is truth, truth beauty.
You've probably all heard about the lesbian girl whose school, in an historic asshole move, canceled its entire prom rather than let her attend with her girlfriend. The twist in this case which I find most appalling is the tendency to place blame not on the school board, but on the girl.
What intrigues me here is that if we were to change the context a little, the events would be interpreted differently. In one case, we could change it to a black man dating a white woman 50 years ago, when the deep South reacted violently to such couplings. What if a school canceled prom because it didn't want to see interracial dates? Some of these people who are now offended on behalf of the "normals" would be equally offended by such a clear case of racism. What's changed? It's not popular to be racist anymore, at least not in public. Logically, if we accept that people don't choose their sexual orientation any more than they choose the color of their skin, does it make sense to censure discrimination based on one but not the other? And yet that logic hasn't made the rounds.
We could also look at it as a matter of individual versus collective guilt. They blame the girl for the cancellation of prom. Suppose it wasn't the school board saying it would cancel prom, but rather a single private individual, making it a case of two opposed people. A man making such a decision would be derided as a small-minded man, incapable of simply letting people have their fun at a traditional venue. And yet, what is the difference between a man who throws a fit and won't let his daughter go to prom because she won't obey him in all things, and a school board which holds the threat of canceling prom for everyone just because two girls won't obey them in all things? Aren't they both petty and controlling?
The same people deriding this girl are those who would agree with phrases like, "We will not negotiate with terrorists." What if the terrorists are the ones in control of your school system? I can't see this move as ethically much better than threatening to maim a hostage unless people behave as you see fit. Why are people blind to it - just because the ones doing it have official positions?
Is this what we've been reduced to? We'll assume authority is right because we can't be bothered to think about issues? Justice isn't worth moderately inconveniencing people?
I went to prom twice. I'd trade both those times in order to make the world a better place. That willingness aside, in this particular situation, the ideal solution is for the school board to not sabotage everyone's prom in order to make its point.
What people are for is complicated, and other people generally don't want to spend time or attention on it.
It's the age of the sound bite.
It's good for you.
"According to German research published in the New England Journal of Medicine, men staring at women's breasts in fact prolong their lives with years."
"According to a study carried out by a Chicago sociologist in 2003, women with big breasts had ten point higher I.Q’s. on average than their less well endowed counterparts. This sociologist conducting the study, who admitted to being a 32A in breast size, looked at 1200 women of various breast sizes."
When I want to friend someone based on their comments and their posts are all incredibly personal - what can I say?
Sat: You know the rules of the game well, sensei
Mori: A man was lost in a labyrinth. Eventually he made it his home, and got used to its twists and turns. Yet he never exited the labyrinth. Did he truly know it?
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